


Cold in his bones, stone in his heart

by saboten



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Gen, Headcanon, Skagos
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-26
Updated: 2013-02-26
Packaged: 2017-12-03 17:04:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,874
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/700625
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/saboten/pseuds/saboten
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He was five and they settled in a tiny shack at the suburbs of the village, the cold always creeping through the wooden walls. With Osha busy by work, Rickon soon took to wander off on his own.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cold in his bones, stone in his heart

“Are you my mother?” he asked once.

*

They changed settlements at first, because they were never far away enough. But vanishing from the world was one thing while relying on information was another. She had promised the boy and the old man to keep the child safe. Osha took the risk to stay and found work at a tannery, for Skagos is populated by more goats and sheep than people. Once in a while she would go away for a day to the big port and trade skins and information from the main lands.

There wasn’t much trade between the north and the island, the Bay of Seals a treacherous passage with a pile of stones as the only reward,  and the hardest part had been to find a boat. Rejection had greeted them at the mere sight of Shaggydog. She wanted to leave him behind because the wolf made a threat to their disguise, but Rickon’s weeping and screaming left her no choice. When it came to the wolf she lost control over the boy, his stubbornness like the force of nature. Osha knew people and she eventually had found someone who knew someone who knew someone who only believed in the depths of the sea.

*

The closer they got the higher the mountain grew until it fully dominated the horizon, and grew even higher to tickle the clouds when they finally reached the haven. Stones and timber  welcomed them and the people looked all the same to him, not different from the place he came from. With each step the houses grew simpler and people started to resemble the beasts from tales and stories, as leather and pelts took over linen and wool.

(She ignored people staring or pointing or shouting at them but the wolves’ presence made it hard to go unseen, just a mother with her child, and as Rickon grew nervous by the masses Shaggydog reflected it. He was hungry and cold and cranky and the idea of marching again wasn’t high in his favours.)  
  
She moved forward and out of the only town on the island.

*

He was five and they settled in a tiny shack at the suburbs of the village, the cold always creeping through the wooden walls. With Osha busy by work, Rickon soon took to wander off on his own. The children avoided him at first, but were inevitably gravitating to him, to his wolf, childish curiosity and fascination winning over horror. Two boys and a girl made a regular shadow to his tours until they came too close, Shaggydog biting one of the boys and strangely enough eventually he and Rickon would grow the closest of the group. After endless waltzing and uncounted stones thrown they bonded over the construction of a dam in a stream. They taught him the sounds of their names for the price of his, and they taught him their words and it didn’t take long for him to talk back to Osha in a bastardy of tongues.

The flax-haired boy died few years later, pneumonia claimed him in a choking embrace, and Rickon would forget him, too.

*

He only picked the meat from his bowl and left cabbage and turnip untouched.

“Eat up,” Osha said.  
  
“I don’t want to,” he whined and started to mash them into pulp. The food was different and he resented the abundance of vegetables over the shortage of meat. On their flight they ate what Shaggydog and Osha were able to hunt because winter left them no choice. He wished that times back (and the times before) and his wooden spoon swirled with too much force.  
  
“Enough.” Osha took his bowl away, getting more soup on the table in the process. “Don’t eat anything then.” Sometimes she wondered if raising dragons was easier than raising this boy.

*

He grew wilder by the minute. He still didn’t let anyone cut his hair, by now tangled and felted and reaching way past his shoulders. The stones gave him life, the harsh land fuelled his wild side and he was running all day long, coming back to Osha ( _coming home_ ) only in the hours of dusk, on the rare summer days even falling asleep in the forest curled up next to Shaggydog. Scolding or the shaft of her spear helped for a short time, the intimidation wearing off as soon as he stepped outside and the world lured him again and she questions herself if coming to this place was the right decision.  
  
Osha called two women to hold him down one morning to finally free him from the mess his hair has become, his feral screams filled the village and he would avoid her red-eyed for the next days. The wind bit his neck and his hand wandered more than often up to the unfamiliar vacantness.

*

“Are you my mother?” he asked once.  
  
He had seen a bright red tamed in a braid and hadn’t thought much of it back then, but it would haunt him, he would remember. The boy was confused because he recalled red hair and the clashing memory of a wrinkled face and smooth hands. There were two of her, two women, and in the distant places of his mind they merged into one, crow’s-feet smiles and silky caresses, and still there was a mother too much left. There was also a father, of course there had to be one. Rickon only could see the back of his cape when the fat man took him away and the darkness of the crypts. He remembered brothers and sisters, too, but Bran was the one he could picture.  
Guilt spread through his limbs because they were secrets ( _don’t tell never tell_ ) and his eyes frantically searched the children’s faces but there were only dirt and laughter and lack of suspicion, and it still would take long until he’d realize that no one was able to read his mind. Only Shaggydog offered his wet nose in a calming nudge, but the wolf was him and he was the wolf.

(He remembered grey blurs always in a hurry, never standing still for long enough to catch on, and walls made of stone. People leaving, people coming. He wasn’t aware that the order was off, knowing the feeling but not yet the concept but all the same they always left him to never return, and the wildling woman became the centerpiece of his world; the single other constant aside from his wolf.)

“Are you?” he asked again because he wasn’t certain anymore and the woman already took long enough to give an answer. Rickon leaned into Shaggydog’s flank.  
  
“Why do you ask?” She didn’t miss the way the wolves’ tail twitched.

“You don’t look like mother. Mother has red hair.”  
  
She saw the desperation in his eye. “No, I’m not. But I am now. We are together in this. Come, sweetling,” she said and took him in her arms. She ceased to call him _prince_ long ago.

*

They fought with wooden swords and explored the stones. He taught them the games he knew and they made up new rules every time. The children grew comfortable enough to pet Shaggydog and bury their faces into his furs, the first horrors and their parents’ restrictions long forgotten. Rickon was a constant guest to their homes, their playgrounds on rainy days and sometimes the old man would tell stories about distant lands and frightening monsters and Rickon would absorb them like a sponge, replacing the stories Old Nan told him in a different life.  
  
They showed him how to craft ornaments out of sticks and stones and seashells and he would wear his first necklace proudly for a whole day until it tore apart. He came running to Osha with the left-overs and tears in his eyes, and she helped him to fix it. From then, he kept it next to his furs and never wore it again, afraid to break it like everything that came in close proximity.

*

He was six.  
   
In the shallow waters of a bay they find the body of a fish with a horn once, still warm and thrashing with the last of its powers. The children stood watching in cruel awe, wind in their hair and salt on their lips. The girl whispered stories of old gods and long forgotten creatures of the sea while the cold crept into their bones. Rickon stared and understood not more than half of her tales, never taking his eyes off of the dying body, caught in a spell. The thrashes grew weaker and the pauses inbetween desperate attempts of escaping death longer. The younger boy started to cry, his silent sobs like thunder in the quietness and behind him Shaggydog growled from the depths of his throat, torn between hunger and obedience.

Rickon looked at his friend next to him and his eyes wandered back to the dying animal. He grabbed the boy’s knife (Osha wouldn’t have him one, not yet) and stepped into the ice cold waters, only stopping to get used to it. Rickon arrived sideways to the fish, waist-deep in the water and waited with chattering teeth through the aftermath of the last thrashing, this time frantic. It’s dotted skin was smooth and wet, he almost could see his reflection, and he didn’t dare to touch it. The knife in his hand grew as heavy as his soaked pelts. He didn’t look back to the children as they held their breaths and the world waited in expectation. Wind and waves slowed down, the seagulls’ laughter drawn-out. Shaggydog howled and Rickon raised the knife in both hands, locking his gaze with the whale’s. He slipped off the first time, underestimating its skin and fat. He tried again, and again and again and suddenly he was covered in spray, a salty mixture of sea and blood and the wolf was by his side to finish what the boy had started.  
  
Rickon stepped back to make space, the trance broken and he was frightened by his deed, frightened by the warmth on his face. The water around him turned red. He dropped the knife and in a fever turned towards his gaping companions. Laughter worked its way up from the depths of his chest to burst and bubble in his throat and they ran all the way back to the woods, leaving him on the shore.

It took three days until he was able to sit down and three days longer until they started to talk to him again, and he would apologize for losing the knife.

*

One month later they saw a horned fish again when the fishermen brought one in, the village holding a feast that night and offered the sacrifice their gods. Rickon didn’t understand why they had to paint their faces in white and black, but he liked to play with the paints and the busyness, people running around and the women preparing food for at least three more villages, until evening came and the whole village gathered around the bonfire and the children sat in guilt and trepidation.

*

In a tiny boat a man landed on the bay, his hair salt and pepper and his hand was a few fingers short.


End file.
